It doesn’t matter if you haven’t watched a single episode of The Ultimate Fighter this season. (Spoiler alert: You haven’t). Tonight’s TUF 16 Finale on FX is still one of the greatest free cards of the year, partly because there aren’t any TUF also-rans mucking it up.

Taking us through the play-by-play this evening is Level 8 Liveblog Wizard Anthony Gannon, who will be updating us with main card results after the jump beginning at 9 p.m. ET. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please, please, please, leave us some comments in the comments section.

We know it’s confusing, so we’ll try to make this as clear as possible…

- The weigh-ins for tomorrow night’s TUF 16 Finale are scheduled for today at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT, and you can watch them live in the player above. We’ll be liveblogging the FX main card broadcast tomorrow night beginning at 9 p.m. ET.

(“I’m sorry, you were saying something about The Ultimate Fighter picking guys with silly gimmicks over those with actual talent nowadays?”)

Last weekend, the UFC dropped off one of the most stacked cards of the year in our lap for free. This weekend, not so much. Make no mistake, we will be treated to two, count ‘em two free fight cards this weekend, but both events will have to do a lot in the exciting finishes department to compensate for the lack of drawing power they posses, especially when compared to the bird-flipping, toothpick-chewing, f-bomb-dropping goodness that was UFC on FOX 5.

Kicking off the weekend’s action will be UFC on FX: Sotiropoulos vs. Pearson, which kicks off live on FX via tape delay starting at 9 p.m. EST. Although it’s been dubbed a UFC on FX event, we might as well refer to it by what it truly is, the TUF: Smashes Finale, because in no other universe could you justify having two middle of the pack lightweights (or whatever Pearson is these days) coming off losses headline an FX card. The man in clown attire pictured above apparently made it all the way to the finals, which should either tell you that the UFC has completely given up on finding actual talent on TUF these days or that you should stop being so damn judgmental. Either way, I haven’t seen an episode of the show, which takes us to Saturday’s event…

Keeping with the tradition established in the last ten or so seasons of the American version of TUF, on Saturday we will be treated to a TUF Finale event that pits one of the show’s coaches against a complete outsider due to the other coach suffering an injury. There’s also the welterweight finals matchup between Colton Smith and Mike Ricci — two guys we’re sure you’re familiar with — so join us after the jump to get the inside scoop on the fights you might actually be interested in seeing this weekend.

With the ratings of this season of The Ultimate Fighter in a tailspin, the UFC has quickly been announcing matchups for the season finale. Unlike previous seasons, it looks as though this season’s finale won’t feature many fights between the not-quite-worthy competitors from the show, as a total of eight fights between current UFC fighters have been announced for the finale. Which is good, because most of you reading this don’t know or care about anyone from this season of TUF 16 in the first place.

The two most recent fights booked for the TUF 16 Finale are a featherweight showdown between Jonathan Brookins and Dustin Poirier and a flyweight bout between Tim Elliott and Jared Papazian.

After winning five straight fights under the Zuffa banner, Dustin Poirier would suffer a fourth round D’arce choke loss to Chan Sung Jung at UFC on FUEL 2. Despite the loss, Poirier put on a Fight of the Night – and arguably Fight of the Year – worthy performance, proving that he’s still a contender in the featherweight division despite the loss to Jung. Meanwhile, things cannot possibly be going more differently for Jonathan Brookins. After defeating Michael Johnson by unanimous decision to win The Ultimate Fighter Season Twelve, Brookins would drop a unanimous decision to Erik Koch, knock out Vagner Rocha and most recently get choked out by Charles Oliveira at June’s TUF 15 finale.

Check after the jump for the full TUF 16 Finale fight card, as well as Chad Mendes’ next opponent.

Maybe it’s just us, but it seems like it’s getting harder and harder to drum up a potential list of future opponents for the winners of a given UFC card these days. Not only are most fighters already booked for the promotion’s ever-increasing amount of cards, but the ones selected for title shots are seemingly being drawn out of a hat. Be that as it may, we are going to try and sift through the wreckage of last night’s UFC on FUEL card and determine who the big winners should face next. Enjoy.

Chan Sung Jung: We’ll be the first to admit that we underestimated “The Korean Zombie” heading into yesterday’s fight. But aside from his excellent transitions on the ground, or that amazing takedown reversal to mount he was able to pull off, the thing that impressed us the most about Jung was his tranquility. While Poirier was throwing his best shots at him, Jung remained calm, and worked his way out of every hairy situation like a true pro. He deserves a title shot, and Dana White claims that he is next in line for one. And The Baldfather would never go back on his word. Just ask Anthony Pettis.

Y’know, it would have been helpful last week if we knew that Jung vs. Poirier was going to be a five-round fight. (Serves me right for trusting the word of a fly-by-night MMA fan-blog.) Though we got a wide variety of guesses in our TrauMMA/No Mas fight-picking contest, none of you guessed that the fight would go to the championship rounds, probably because you didn’t know that it was even a possibility.

Nevertheless, the two closest picks belonged to spidey811 (“Zombie def. Poirier via Anaconda Choke at 3:54 in Round 3 [Submission of the Night]“) and topdog (“Jung def Poirier via submission (RNC) @ 3:23 of rd 3 [Submission of the night]“) — who will both be getting the new Korean Zombie t-shirt from TrauMMA Combat Apparel.

Honorable mention goes to Freddyboiiiii, who predicted a second-round submission win for Jung, and correctly guessed that the fight would pick up the Submission of the Night and Fight of the Night bonuses. That’s good enough for a CagePotato t-shirt, I think. If your name has been called, please send your real name, shirt size, and address to contest@cagepotato.com, and we’ll send out your prizes ASAP. Thanks again to TrauMMA for the hookup!

Ladies and gentlemen of the Potato Nation, the end times are upon us. Last night, a quiet, unassuming man named Chan Sung Jung escaped from a remote Korean testing facility and wound up in Fairfax, Virginia. Needing to fulfill certain diversity requirements that had long eluded them, the people of Fairfax embraced and accepted him with open arms, completely unaware that he was in fact patient zero of a zombie-like virus that would spell the untimely demise of the human race. Those ignoramuses.

Before they even knew what had hit them, reports of strange occurrences were popping up from county to county, then state to state. Having caught the latter half of the movie Outbreak on TBS just a few weeks prior, the people of Fairfax knew that they had to capture the source of the disease if they were ever to restore order to the chaos they had created. So they sent forth their bravest virologist, a man by the name of Dustin Poirier, to subdue the host and bring him back for testing. Early reports claimed that “The Diamond” would have little to no trouble accomplishing this feat, as he had successfully extinguished every threat placed before him since joining the Zuffa corporation.

How wrong they were.

For nearly twenty minutes, the two engaged in an all out war of attrition, one that would determine the very fate of mankind. He put up a hell of a fight, but as much as it saddens us to say this, we are officially doomed. Poirier was infected by “The Korean Zombie (virus),” and chances are that you will be soon as well. Early symptoms include raucous use of the phrase, “HOLY SHIT BRO”, an ability to absorb a tremendous amount of punishment, $80,000 cash, drowsiness, and cramps.

The main event of last night’s UFC on FUEL TV 3 event blew past its already high expectations. “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung and Dustin Poirier set a frenetic pace for over three rounds, with Jung dominating the fight both in the standup and on the ground. In the end, Jung rocked Poirier with punches and a flying knee, and put “Diamond” to sleep on the mat with a d’arce choke at the 1:07 mark of round four. You can check out highlights from their scrap above, including an excerpt from Jung’s astounding grappling clinic in round two.

(Impressed, Jung decided to get a tattoo of the outline of Louisiana, mistaking it as the American symbol for “courage.” / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle. For more photos from this set, click here.)

Tonight at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia, two of the most exciting forces in the featherweight division will square off for the next shot at the UFC’s 145-pound belt. After a 2011 that saw him twist up Leonard Garcia then knock out Mark Hominick in seven seconds, “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung now faces Dustin Poirier, the 23-year-old phenom who’s smashed through four straight opponents during his time in the Octagon.

Handling the play-by-play for this evening is Justin Corey, better known around these parts as Kid Clam Curtains. Live results from the FUEL TV main card will be piling up after the jump beginning at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.